Funny vs. Facts: How can you make a joke in comics journalism?

Editing a magazine of comics journalism presents some interesting challenges. Symbolia merges non-fiction reporting, illustration, and interactive elements. We’re trying a new kind of news, and it seems to be working. We’ve built a truly global audience for our work (only 55% of our subscribers are in the US), which is amazing.

But there’s still something that I’m struggling to do: break through the somber tones affecting most comics journalism today and publish something that is deeply, truly, gut-bustingly hilarious. Editorial cartoons don’t count. While they rely on fact, the use of caricature and, y’know, opinion, can obscure the integrity of the reportage.

Seriousness is something that plagues non-fiction comics in general. From Fun Home to Stitches to Palestine, things can get pretty grim. It could be because comics are still trying to “prove themselves” as a medium—but I sure hope not. We’re all over the “but comics aren’t for kids anymore” thing….right?

When I was developing Symbolia, when it was just a twinkle in my eye, I was continually asked two questions:

But how will you make it funny?

Well, is it true?

I’d like to think there’s room in the world for both. Give me the John Jeremiah Sullivan of comics journalism. Please. The funniest non-fiction comics work I’ve read in the past few years has been autobiographical, not reportage: Vanessa Davis’ Make Me a Woman and Drinking at the Movies by Julia Wertz. More David Sedaris than David Remnick.

Matt Diffee’s reportage on snake handlers in the Cartoon Picayune is a refreshing break from the oh-so-serious comics journalism trope, but his breed of work is pretty rare. Andy Warner has also done some amazing work for us and we love the little easter eggs he peppers throughout each project.

Matt Diffee for the Cartoon Picayune

What to do about it?

We’re closing production on Symbolia’s third issue now and one thing is painfully obvious: Comics journalism can be whimsical. It can be gut-wrenchingly honest. It can be evocative and convey real emotions. Comics can convey humor. Comics can convey truth. But can they do both?

I often feel, as an editor of a news product, that we have to prove the veracity of our work since it’s not “typical news.” That often means we fact-check the funny out.

That doesn’t mean that Symbolia is dry and dull and depressing. Joyce Rice, Symbolia’s cofounder, and I do all sorts of things to adapt: We have a really whimsical sense of design, we pair cultural reporting with stuff that goes a little deeper, investigation-wise, we add interactive treats to cultivate delight…but straight up humor is really, really hard.

Audrey Quinn and Kat Fajardo for Symbolia

So, we’ve developed all of these coping mechanisms to add delight–but our jokes are few and far between. We’re publishing a story on sexbot AI in the next issue and I finally feel like we have something that is deeply humorous, though it pushes a few journalistic boundaries.

I figured I’d take this conundrum to the HU community and ask you to prove me wrong. I’m looking for deeply funny, deeply true examples of comics journalism. SO: Let’s take this to the comments. I want you to tell me I’m wrong. What’s out there? Is what I’m looking for even possible? I’ll be diving in and out of the ensuring thread over the weekend and will pull the most interesting, most insightful comments up into this post.

Starter question: What is the single most hilarious work of non-fiction comics you’ve ever read? Why? GO!

All right, we got some great ideas–R. Crumb, Jessica Abel, Harvey Kurtzman, and more.

Time for my next question: When the cartooning is REALLY cartoony, can a comic still convey truth?

There are some examples of comics journalism in Jennifer Jameson’s autobiography. The comics are by Bernard Chang (with text by Jameson, presumably, more or less.) There’s one listing stripper injuries which is both horrifying and very funny. (Dancing in high heels is really bad for your feet, as it turns out. Also neck problems from whipping your hair around.)

I forget the title but Crumb did a bit of reportage back in the late 1970s when he visited a symposium on space exploration. Crumb both reported on what he saw there but also satirized it (one panel shows Crumb dressed up like Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon). That was originally published in the co-evolution quarterly and reprinted of course in the Complete Crumb volume covering the late 1970s.

Joe Sacco’s reports from Rock concerts and other such events are also funny (see Sacco’s book But I Like It).

In the early 1960s Esquire sent Harvey Kurtzman to various events including Cannes. He sent back humorous reports (this stuff alas hasn’t been reprinted.

This is just what comes immediately to mind. There are other examples.

I’d recommend taking a look at some of Jessica Abel’s comics journalism in her collection Soundtrack: Short Stories ’90-’96. As you can tell by the title, it also includes some fiction, but the comics essays and journalistic pieces it contains are among my favorites. I don’t have my copy of her other collection, Mirror, Window, here at my desk so I don’t recall if that also includes any nonfiction, but it is also worth investigating.

The piece she did about the comics symposium last spring at the U. of Chicago, which I think was published in a U. of C. alumni magazine, also displays her impeccable pacing and her subtle, dry sense of humor. I’d love to see her expand that into a longer visual essay on the relationship between comics and academia.

Abel’s comics symposium piece is one of the worst comics I have ever read, journalism or otherwise. It was a quintessence of the smug sycophancy that plagued coverage of that event, and that dogs the art comics scene in general. I thought about writing about it, but I couldn’t bear to reread it (it’s only like two or three pages.)

Ouch! One of the worst comics ever!! You should write about it to exorcise it!

I actually really enjoyed it, but I was reading it as a somewhat satirical or at least gently comical take on what was happening at the conference, which I missed. There is something about the way Abel paces her comics, especially her placement of “interviews” with different subjects, which I find interesting.

For example, in the later part of the story she juxtaposes students interviews with Alison Bechdel’s comment, “It’s the quiet kids who aren’t speaking up who understand visual language.” At that point we’ve had three pages of talking heads, students and academics alike, and then suddenly Bechdel tells us that silence might be more telling than all this sound–and the Bechdel panels appear just before a closing comment from W.J.T. Mitchell (or, anyway, Abel’s drawing of W.J.T. Mitchell). In terms of telling the story of the event, I found that inclusion of Bechdel at the end an interesting choice. But, Noah, I’d probably have to think (and write) more about why I find it so effective as a complete story, words and pictures. Someday I’d like to write a more sustained piece on Abel’s earlier work, as I find some of it very moving, too.

These are all great suggestions, but a lot of them are really, really caricature-driven. (Crumb, Bagge, etc.) I worry a lot about representation. You can make someone look cartoonish, but you can’t make them a caricature. I feel like that actually takes a lot of credibility away from the source and is the equivalent of over-editorializing.

It’s not that I don’t love that work–I just want to have my cake and eat it too.

Well…I think Bagge’s work is more along the lines of editorials, it seems like — that is, there may be some reporting, but he definitely frames them as opinion pieces — I don’t think there’s much of a pretense of objectivity.

In some ways you could argue that the caricature actually makes his pieces more trustworthy, because it’s very clear that it is his opinion, rather than suggesting that it’s striving for some sort of objectivity. I often feel like in journalism it’s more important to be clear about where you’re coming from anyway than to try to adhere to some sort of objective stance-from-nowhere….

I think it’s really easy to see why Noah hates that Jessica Abel comic so much. But it’s really no worse than the few reports I’ve read on the symposium. The “sycophancy” is, presumably, no more nor less than what occurred at the event. It’s the event he’s responding to more than the comic (which is pretty matter of fact for the most parts).

I don’t think Brian is wrong about the inclusion of the Alison Bechdel statement towards the end of the comic – it’s like a journalist adding a sense of disquiet and opposition to the whole process. But since Abel teaches and writes about comics in print, it’s probably included as an opposition to her own feelings on the subject.

I liked Crumb’s strip about going to the Academy Awards (commissioned by Premier Magazine) better than his space strip. His alienated perspective not only resulted in some laughs (as when he reacted to the flashing “APPLAUSE” sign by folding his arms and thinking, “Fuck you, I won’t do it!”) but also led him to notice things like trees being set up near the red carpet to block out angry black protesters chanting about affordable housing. It was crazy to read that thing in Premier.

Oh, and regarding the overall coverage of the University of Chicago symposium, I read a pretty decent article about it in the Chicago Sun Times. At one point, the reporter overheard a guy trying to convince his friend to get Crumb’s autograph, when Bill Ayers, of all people, passed by and said, “Oh, just do it. It’ll be good for you.”

R. Crumb & Aline have done various reporting jobs for the New Yorker in the past few decades, among them a trip to Cannes, a fashion show, their family reunion.

” When the cartooning is REALLY cartoony, can a comic still convey truth?”

I think it’s the same principle as with print or TV journalism. You probably want to let the subject matter itself bring forth the humor, rather than the one doing the reporting. “Really cartoony” comics can be as truthful as a Hunter S. Thompson story.

But then again, considering how few examples are coming to mind it’s hard to be definitive about this subject. The sample size is too small.

While a quick glance at the “Symbolia” site looks highly promising, Erin Polgreen’s premises are utterly absurd.

You don’t have to be “into” philosophy, or (gawd help us) Theory, to be aware that some recreated version of an actual event can’t come close to being “true.” Never mind, “deeply true.” (And what’s with this focus on gut-busting hilarity? Does that not make the hoped-for achievement even more unattainable?)

Even a straightforward-seeming documentary movie — where filmed people, rather than hand-rendered versions are shown — leaves out masses of information; can (wittingly or not) hugely distort the actual events.

As for that malarkey about how “the use of caricature and, y’know, opinion, can obscure the integrity of the reportage,” let’s hit the nonsense one item at a time.

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Slate: What was it like for you to draw so many characters who—unlike Spider-Man—we are all so familiar with photographs of?

Colón: The ones that were most difficult were the ones that ordinarily would be easiest to caricature. The easier they were to caricature, the more effort I took to not caricature them. For example, Dick Cheney has a mouth formation that looks like a sneer. I drew him that way at first because it was recognizable. My wife looked over my shoulder and said, “He looks villainous!” And so I changed it so it looked less like I was making a statement. I didn’t want to do that to anybody.
————————-http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2006/09/the_trouble_with_drawing_dick_cheney.3.html

So, drawing Cheney looking as he actually does is seen as “editorializing”! (We’d better render Joe McCarthy as looking sensitive and sophisticated; Jerry Falwell as enlightened and humble, instead of sanctimonious and arrogant.)

And, cannot caricature be a better means of conveying details about reality and personalities than a driver’s-license-photo-type rendering?

The Expressionists were perfectly aware how going beyond a “just the facts, Ma’m,” visualization could express powerful emotional realities:

…You can make someone look cartoonish, but you can’t make them a caricature. I feel like that actually takes a lot of credibility away from the source and is the equivalent of over-editorializing.
————————–

That pretty much reveals what I suspected; what we have here is the result of muddy thinking!

As for the other bit of nonsense expressed in “the use of caricature and, y’know, opinion, can obscure the integrity of the reportage,” this ludicrous bit of self-castration results in journalists who — terrified of appearing like they have an “opinion” — treat one side making sensible, reasonable fact-based arguments, and the other frothing away with paranoid fantasies about the Death Panels of Obamacare, and how the Kenyan Muslim Atheist Feminist is going to impose Sharia law on America as…equally valid. (Guess which side loses, and which benefits, from this eschewing of “opinion”?)

None of that nasty “caricature” and “opinion” here. Yet, do those not utterly fail to express the actuality of the event, the fear, danger, stressfulness of the situation? The threatening intimidation of the robber, the nervousness of the victim?

Cham has all but cornered the market on college graduate student humor, publishing books and routinely making speaking appearances at colleges nationwide. I first saw his work at a Comic Art Professional Society (CAPS) meeting I attended in Burbank about two years ago, where he was the guest lecturer. His stuff can be pretty hilarious – even if you’re not a grad student.

Much of his humor is based on actual anecdotes and/or personal experiences. Here are some examples:

Another great niche anecdotal cartoonist was Bob Stevens, creator of the long-running “There I Was…” aviation cartoon series. For the cartoons ideas he didn’t witness himself, he had thousands of military and civilian aviators sending him their anecdotes over the decades he did the strip, ala the “Reader’s Digest” Humor in Uniform feature. Sometimes his humor was a bit flat, but often it was quite funny.

Unfortunately, the amount of Stevens’ strips online is very limited. His work is old school and almost entirely available only in the back issues of magazines were it originally appeared, or in book anthologies. Thus, the selection below is not very good:

Reminds me of those wonderful “USS Stevens” stories by Sam Glanzman, little back-ups in DC war comics, detailing Glanzman’s experiences in the US Navy during WWII.

Iremember one in particular — ‘Ride the Baka’– that I consider one of the finest comics stories ever, in whatever medium.
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Damn, wish I recalled that one; the “USS Stevens” story — they were indeed quite good — that firmly embedded in my brain was one where they landed on a coastline in Africa, and a curious chimp came up to investigate. A crewmate of Glanzman’s teased the ape with increasing vehemence, finally striking it on the head with his helmet. The chimpanzee suddenly attacked viciously, fatally injuring the idiot, until it was shot dead…

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steven samuels says:

” When the cartooning is REALLY cartoony, can a comic still convey truth?”

I think it’s the same principle as with print or TV journalism. You probably want to let the subject matter itself bring forth the humor, rather than the one doing the reporting. “Really cartoony” comics can be as truthful as a Hunter S. Thompson story.
———————–

Indeed so!

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But then again, considering how few examples are coming to mind it’s hard to be definitive about this subject. The sample size is too small.
————————–

There actually have been many fine examples, even though they mostly failed to make a “splash.” A big problem is that, with the collapse of alt-comics anthologies (where much fascinating fare was featured), the descent into further obscurity of their offerings, plus the hugely scattered nature of the stories, they’ve failed to receive the acclaim they deserved.

Some of Harvey Pekar’s stories — most of his artists soft-pedaling the “cartooning” — are humorous. But this is of the wry, ironic variety: in a fairly recent offering published by DC, he told of unclogging a toilet at his home, succeeding at his task (a big deal for someone whose comics-image is as impractical at everyday tasks as Eddie Campbell), then triumphantly holding up the plunger like a king’s scepter: “Today I am a man!”

[…] Comics | Erin Polgreen, editor of the tablet anthology of comics journalism Symbolia, wonders if there is a place for humor in the non-fiction sequential world: “I often feel, as an editor of a news product, that we have to prove the veracity of our work since it’s not ‘typical news.’ That often means we fact-check the funny out.” But she’s figuring out a way to make it work. [The Hooded Utilitarian] […]